To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,
To appease an angry god.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil,
In an imperial charge.3

pardon :

But I shall crave you.

That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:
Though all things foul would wear the brows of

grace,

Yet grace must still look so.^

Macd.

I have lost my hopes.

Mal. Perchance, even there where I did find my

doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? — I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties: you may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.

Macd.

Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dares not check thee! wear the thy

wrongs;

The title is affeer'd!"

Fare thee well, lord:

I would not be the villain that thou think'st,
For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,
And the rich East to boot.

Mal.

Be not offended:

A good mind may recede from goodness under an imperial command.

4. That is, must still look as it does. A similar expression oc curs in All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. sc. 3: "Good alone is good, without a name; vileness is so."

H.

5 That is, the title is confirmed to thee, since none dare chal lenge it."Wear thou thy wrongs,"

hast won by wrong.

that is, the honours tho

H

I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It
weeps,
it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds: I think, withal,
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here, from gracious England, have I offer
Of goodly thousands: but, for all this,
When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before;
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.

Macd.

What should he be ?

Mal. It is myself I mean; in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted, That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd

With my confineless harms.

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd

In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name; but there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust; and my desire

All continent impediments would o'erbear,
That did oppose my will.

Than such a one to reign.

Macd.

Better Macbeth,

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny: it hath been

The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet

To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
To do worse to you, were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person.

I dare abide no longer.

L. Macd.

I have done no harm:

Heaven preserve you

[Ent.

Whither should I fly?

But I remember now

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly: why, then, alas!
Do I put up that womanly defence,

To say

I have done no harm?. What are these faces?

Enter Murderers.

Mur. Where is your husband?

L. Macd. I hope, in no place so unsanctified, Where such as thou may'st find him.

Mur.

He's a traitor.

Son. Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd3 villain.

[Exit Lady MACDUFF, crying murder, and pursued by the Murderers.

The old copy has shag-ear'd, upon which Mr. Knight remarks, -"This should be probably shag-hair'd." Mr. Dyce, quoting this remark, adds,- Assuredly it should: formerly, hair was often written hear; and shag-hear'd was doubtless altered by a mistake of the transcriber, or the original compositor, to shagear'd. King Midas, after his decision in favour of Pan, is the only human being on record to whom the latter epithet could be applied." Shag-hair'd was a common term of abuse. In Lodge's Incarnate Devils of this Age, 1596, we have “shag-heard slave."

H.

6 "This scene," says Coleridge, “dreadful as it is, is still a relief, because a variety, because domestic, and therefore soothing, as associated with the only real pleasures of life. The conversation between Lady Macduff and her child heightens the pathos

SCENE III. England.

A Room in the King's Palace.

Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF.

Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Let us rather

Macd.
Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
Bestride our downfall'n birthdom.' Each new morn,
New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour.

Mal.
What know, believe; and what I can redress,
As I shall find the time to friend, I will.

What I believe, I'll wail:

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, Was once thought honest: you have lov'd him well; He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something

You may deserve of him through me;

2

and wisdom

---

and is preparatory for the deep tragedy of their assassination. Shakespeare's fondness for children is everywhere shown; in Prince Arthur in King John; in the sweet scene in The Winter's Tale between Hermione and her son; nay, even in honest Evans' examination of Mrs. Page's schoolboy."

H.

1 Birthdom, for the place of our birth, our native land. To bestride one that was down in battle, was a special bravery of friendship. See The Comedy of Errors, Act v. sc. 1, note 12. H.

2 The old copy reads discerne, an easy misprint for deserve. The emendation was made by Theobald. In the latter part of the line something is wanted to complete the sense. "'tis wisdom to offer," &c. Through me means, by putting me out of the way.

To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,
To appease an angry god.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil,

In an imperial charge.3 But I shall crave you. pardon :

That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell: Though all things foul would wear the brows of

grace,

Yet grace must still look so."

Macd.

I have lost my hopes.

Mal. Perchance, even there where I did find my

doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? — I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties: you may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.

Macd.

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dares not check thee! wear the thy

wrongs;

The title is affeer'd!

Fare thee well, lord:

I would not be the villain that thou think'st,
For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,
And the rich East to boot.

Mal.

Be not offended:

A good mind may recede from goodness under an imperial command. A similar expression oc

4. That is, must still look as it does. curs in All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. sc. 3: "Good alone is good, without a name; vileness is so."

H.

5 That is, the title is confirmed to thee, since none dare challenge it." Wear thou thy wrongs," that is, the honours thou hast won by wrong.

H